


Miscommunication

by thedevilchicken



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Banter, Confessions, Explicit Sexual Content, Flower Language, M/M, Older Man/Younger Man, Revelations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 06:12:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15966356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Evie thinks the flowers Roth sends Jacob to signal the start of a joint operation are a meaningful gift for Jacob's secret lover. Jacob has unexpected opinions of his own about this.





	Miscommunication

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neverminetohold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverminetohold/gifts).



Evie picked up the bouquet from on top of the safe where Jacob had discarded it, sniffed at it almost as suspiciously as it was humanly possible to sniff at a neat bunch of cut hothouse flowers, and then turned that suspicious look on him. 

"So, who is she?" she asked. 

"Who is who?" Jacob replied. He'd been pretending to read a newspaper for at least the past fifteen minutes, as the train was slowly pulling around Whitechapel station, as if a journalist's party political screed might take his mind off his excitement at the job he had planned for that night. He thought perhaps his sister's machinations might help a little more than that.

She raised the flowers, brandishing them disconcertingly like a cane sword, had a cane sword shed petals on Agnes's newly beaten rugs.

"The one you're worthy of," she said.

Jacob folded the newspaper and sat up straight. "Look, Evie, I don't have the foggiest what you're talking about," he said. "While I realise that's not necessarily out of the ordinary..."

"White tulips," she said. She shook the bouquet at him accusingly, shedding more petals in the process. "Henry - _Mr. Green_ \- and I have been reading about the language of flowers, Jacob. White tulips mean _I'm worthy of you_."

Jacob raised his brows. Evie put her hands on her hips and raised her brows, too, signalling an impasse. They looked at each other. As Jacob genuinely had nothing more to say, he had his suspicions that he could keep his silence longer. 

"Fine," she said, at last. "If you don't want to tell me, by all means keep your little secret. But..." She paused and threw the bouquet, more at him than to him, but the corners of her mouth quirked in a faint, familiar smile. "Believe it or not, I'm very happy for you." 

Then she turned and walked away, exiting into the sleeper car. And Jacob, for once in his life, had absolutely no idea what to say. 

At the very least, he had something to think about.

-

When the job was done, the two of them returned to the Alhambra as they often did. Jacob might have nominally shared the moving base of operations with his sister but, as the days since they'd met had turned to weeks, he'd found himself haunting Maxwell Roth's bustling theatre with ever more regularity.

"You know, my sister saw the flowers you sent," Jacob said, as they stepped into Roth's private study and away from the performance going on downstairs. "She thinks there's some secret lover that I'm hiding from her and the flowers have a kind of hidden meaning." 

Roth took off his jacket and hung it up on the hatstand behind the door, then he settled himself in the chair at his desk.

Jacob's top hat joined Roth's jacket then his long coat joined them both, leaving him in shirtsleeves and his gauntlet that Roth had seen him using more than once. It had turned out that Roth knew about the Assassins and the Templars but he didn't care much for either cause, and Jacob couldn't say he didn't find that a perfectly defensible position - after all, he knew he didn't follow all the rules himself. He didn't care much for the Templars, but he sometimes wondered if that had more to do with habit than conviction.

"Did you set her straight?" Roth asked, with a second's glance at Jacob as he reached for the bottle sitting on the desktop. 

Jacob leaned against the desk, crossed his legs at the ankles and crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, that would have been rather disingenuous of me," he replied. "Though I suppose I could have told her I was the one receiving the flowers instead of the one sending them." 

Roth poured one rather large glass of whiskey. "So there _is_ a secret lover?" he asked, his eyes trained studiously on the second glass. He might have been an actor once, Jacob thought, but his skill could use a touch-up if he'd intended the look on his face to be even close to indifferent. Jacob saw through it, lunkheaded as he knew he sometimes was about that kind of thing.

"You might call it that," he said. He accepted the glass that Roth offered him and took a sip, winced - he'd always been more of an ale man - then took a rather large mouthful. A little Dutch courage couldn't hurt, he thought.

"Did you send her my flowers?" Roth asked. He looked up at Jacob as he cradled his own glass, one knee just barely grazing Jacob's thigh, and frankly Jacob knew, for once, with great sincerity, that he'd been a complete fool. The fact was, the two of them had been thick as thieves and in each other's pockets since the day they'd met, and what Jacob had put down to an overly familiar kind of thespian camaraderie just...wasn't. It had taken a bunch of tulips and his sister's apparently not totally batty misconception to make him take another look.

He'd set out that evening to sabotage a shipment of tea, which by all rights should not have seemed like such an excellent way to spend his time except that tea was, by all accounts, Crawford Starrick's favourite, and there had even been a chance the man himself might appear to take delivery. Starrick hadn't arrived in person but one of his lieutenants had; Jacob had pushed his hidden blade into the lieutenant's neck while Roth watched him with a rather glowing smile and complimented him on excellent technique. Jacob had taken a little tea for Evie and Agnes and the others on the train then handed the rest to the Rooks, but he couldn't say his mind had been on beverages. He'd known Roth was looking at him. He'd known the way he looked at him. Now that he was looking for it, it was plain as the nose on his face. The fact was, he found the idea thrilling.

"Honestly, there's no _her_ to send them to," he said, after a moment's pause.

"A gentleman, then?" Roth sipped from his glass. "You're full of surprises, my dear. I did not think your inclinations ran in that direction." 

Jacob shrugged. "I suppose you could say they do, every now and then." 

Roth tilted his head as he looked at him. "Is he handsome?" he asked.

"I believe that some might say so."

"Does he make your heart beat faster?"

Jacob permitted himself a wry sort of smile. "Oh, every day," he said.

"And does he love you, Jacob?"

He took a moment's pause. He considered the question, and considered the evidence, though Evie had always been the twin with talent in that particular direction. He considered dinners at the theatre, the excellent wines Roth smiled and poured for him, and all those days and nights causing havoc together to Crawford Starrick's businesses. Roth knew exactly what he loved to do. Roth was attentive, and engaging, and almost everything they did together was, at its core, for Jacob's entertainment.

"I believe he does," Jacob said.

"Then I wish you joy of him, my dear," Roth told him, sharply, and he turned back to his desk. He retrieved a sheaf of papers, and Jacob had to wonder if he'd pushed too far. 

"Don't you want to know who he is?" Jacob asked. 

"My curiosity is piqued, indeed," Roth replied, hotly, though he didn't raise his gaze back up. "However, I'd say it's none of my affair." 

Jacob moved. He took a few steps away across the floorboards and then went closer again, behind him, almost nervous though he told himself that was just so much nonsense. He leaned with one hand against the back of Roth's chair as he produced a slightly crumpled single tulip from an inside pocket his coat, with the bouquet's original red ribbon tied haphazardly around its stem. Considering how long it had been inside his coat, and what he'd been doing in the meantime, he thought it had survived quite well. He tossed it down on top of Roth's papers, ignoring the tension in his chest. 

"I think you know him," Jacob said, still standing there behind him, perhaps because he found things simpler that way. "His name is Maxwell Roth." 

Roth put down his drink. He put down his papers. His hands squeezed into white-knuckled fists. "Don't mock me, Jacob," he warned him, darkly. 

"I'm perfectly serious." 

"You don't know what you're saying." 

Jacob moved again. He leaned against the edge of Roth's desk then hopped up onto it, his legs swinging. "I know what I'm saying," he said, looking at him. "You want to take me to bed. I've got absolutely no wish to stop you." 

"And you know what that entails?"

Jacob raised his brows. "You might call me _dear boy_ but I'm not a child, Roth. I know what sodomy is." 

Roth gave a rough bark of hard-edged laughter. "Do you now," he said, pushing his chair back to leave a space between himself and the edge of the desk in front of him. "You say I want to take you to bed. Why bed when there's a perfectly good desk right here?" 

He reached forward, leaning in his chair to give the wooden desktop a hard slap with the flat of his hand. Jacob could see what he was doing and it made him bristle because this hadn't been the plan, such as the plan had been; Roth had been supposed to be delighted by this new epiphany and they'd been supposed to have a drink together, make a bit of fun of Jacob's late state of understanding, then retire to bed to see what other mischief they could find themselves. It hadn't gone that way at all and maybe he resented that, so he pulled off his gauntlet and tossed it onto the desk. He shrugged off his waistcoat and he let it drop to the floor in a crumple. He unbuttoned his shirt, or at least the last two buttons before he gave that up and pulled it off in one swift, agitated motion, leaving himself bare to the waist except his scars and bruises and tattoos. Then he hopped down off the desk and he bent down petulantly over the edge of it right there in front of Roth, resting on his forearms with the medallion around his neck grazing lightly against the wood. 

"Is this clear enough for you?" Jacob asked. Then he unbuckled his belt and pushed his trousers down over his hips, down to his knees. "Does that better make the point?"

"God damn you, Jacob Frye," Roth said, like he might stalk away and leave, but then Jacob felt Roth's hands at the sides of his bare thighs, moving up to his hips and then his waist. Roth sighed and Jacob felt his breath against his lower back. He felt Roth part his cheeks and rub one warm thumb against the hole between them. Jacob rook an unsteady breath. Perhaps it wasn't exactly the scene he'd imagined, but it was a start, at least.

"I believe you would let me have you like this, would you not?" Roth asked, his voice tight. 

"Yes, I would." 

"Is that because you think it's what I want or because you want it yourself?"

"Equal parts of both, I'd think," Jacob replied. 

"Then perhaps I should tell you a secret." 

Roth paused, his thumb still rubbing a light circle against the rim of Jacob's arsehole. Jacob felt himself stiffen at the feel of it, his cock starting to fill, but Roth didn't go on with what he'd been saying, or what he'd been about to say.

"Are you going to enlighten me?" Jacob asked.

Roth withdrew his hands. "Turn around," he said, so Jacob did; he leaned back against the edge of the desk, bare to the knees with his cock already at half mast. Roth took it in one hand, he wrapped his fingers around it, and he stroked him slowly as he looked up from the chair to meet his gaze. With his pale eyes and scars and whiskers and the fact that he was maybe twice Jacob's age at that precise moment, it wasn't a look that many would have called handsome, but Jacob appreciated the way that he was put together. He appreciated the touch of Roth's hand against him. He appreciated all the time they'd spent in each other's company.

It wasn't long till Jacob's cock was almost as hard as the desk he was sitting on and Roth opened his mouth as if to speak again but then he licked the tip of Jacob's cock instead. He took the head into his mouth, sucked, with a swirl of his tongue, and Jacob groaned out loud, ragged and with considerable volume. Roth chuckled, wrapped his fingers firmly around the base of him, and pulled back. Then he stood, still holding Jacob's cock with one firm hand, the other one skimming Jacob's bare chest up to his shoulder, then the back of his neck, into his hair. He shifted closer. The tip of Jacob's cock nudged Roth's clothed hip and made him shiver as he leaned in by his ear as if to speak. He didn't. He pressed his mouth to Jacob's neck. He grazed his pulse with his teeth.

Then, he unbuckled his belt. He pushed down his trousers. "I believe you said something about sodomy," he said, taking Jacob's cock into his hand along with the length of his own, and Jacob snickered though his face felt rather warm as Roth looked at him that way.

"Well, we've committed several other crimes tonight," Jacob said. "Why not add another?"

"An excellent point, as always." Roth stroked them both, side by side, then he flicked his gaze across the desk. "I think we might need that bottle over there," he said, so Jacob took the not very subtle hint and turned away to retrieve it. Roth took the opportunity to pin him to the desk as Jacob handed the bottle back over his shoulder. Roth took the opportunity to unstopper it and drizzle the contents in between Jacob's cheeks. He felt it run thickly right down to his balls but Roth ran his fingers through it before it could drip and ruin the carpets. Then the thick, blunt head of Roth's hard cock pressed up against his hole. Jacob braced himself. Roth pushed forward. Slowly, haltingly, thrillingly, inexorably, Jacob felt himself be penetrated. The wide stretch and the low friction took his breath away and honestly, as Roth's hands gripped at his hips, as Roth began to fuck him, slowly, tantalisingly, all Jacob could find it in himself to think was _we could have done this weeks ago_.

The sex they had was a beautiful disaster from that point onwards. Jacob spilled the oil all over Roth's desk and soaked his papers in it. They stumbled and fell as they both tried to retrieve it and broke Roth's desk chair on their way to the ground. Jacob pushed Roth down onto his back on the rug and he went down into a crouch with his trousers in the way, fucking himself on the length of Roth's cock till one thigh cramped. Roth stripped him after that, pulled off his boots and his trousers and his underwear and pushed him down onto his back and then he fucked him, Jacob's non-cramped calf up over one shoulder and the other one around his waist to pull him in deeper with each thrust. Jacob gripped at Roth's arms over the fabric of his shirt until he managed to tear the stitching open and they laughed, breathless, shaking against each other, until Roth bit his own lip and fucked him harder. Roth came in him, with a strangled groan, then knelt between his thighs and stroked him till he finished, too, with his cock still hard inside him. Jacob fucking tingled with it, even if his body ached from head to toe.

Then, once they'd caught their breath and hauled each other to their feet, they went into the next room and they stretched out in Roth's bed. Considering the hour, it seemed like the natural thing to do.

"You know, you never told me that secret," Jacob said, as Roth leaned away to turn out the lamp. There were more scars on his skin that Jacob could see now that they were both without their clothes, in the thin moonlight through the window. He felt a whimsical urge to press his mouth to one of them. He decided he'd find all of them, later.

"We had more pressing matters to attend to," Roth replied, turning to him, mirthful and arch in the usual way, but now instead of just amusement, Jacob felt a brief surge of something else in him. 

"So you intend to keep me in the dark?" he asked.

Roth settled closer. "Not at all," he said. Both of them stretched out on their sides, he ran one hand down the length of Jacob's spine and made him shiver as he leaned in close, his mouth by his ear. 

"The fact of it is, the tulips were the first I came to at the market," Roth murmured. "Jacob, loath as I am to admit it, I'm afraid I don't speak flower." 

Jacob couldn't help it: he laughed out loud at that. He rested his forehead down against Roth's and threw one arm around his waist, beneath the sheets. If that was the kind of secret Maxwell Roth might keep from him, he couldn't see too many dark days stretching out in front of them at all.

"So, is there one that might mean _fuck me now_?" Roth asked. "I think that might be a useful one, my dear. Let me tell you of the glorious plans I have for places you might put your cock."

Jacob grinned, rather thrilled by that idea. Perhaps because Roth seemed the type of man who might have a thing or two to teach him, and who might take a little tutelage in turn. 

"You know, I don't know," he said, "I'll have to ask Evie." 

But for now, he thought, the question could wait.


End file.
